Chapter Twenty-Three
Days later, my hand hovers over the door.
Knock, I will myself. It’s been three shifts since I nearly murdered Dominik in the lounge.
In between Healing sessions with Eli in the king’s private library, I took advantage of the time off by lacing as much food to the bloodstained tunnel as my genius could manage.
Now the scab itches, and I will return to work in two days.
I haven’t had a chance to see Lila or thank her.
If they can wield their magic to destroy…why can’t I use mine to create? She is a strong, admirable faerie, someone I want to create pockets of joy with, to call a friend.
So I knock.
Lila opens the door, her coiled hair framing her face like a halo. Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise before a smile breaks out across her features.
“You’re okay!” she exclaims. “I was so worried—”
I throw my arms around her neck. We stumble against the doorframe and when she laughs, I’m shocked that I do, too.
Lila pulls back, scanning my face. “Are you okay?”
“Much better.”
“There was a lot of blood.”
My eyes water. We could talk about what happened, what she saw when Dominik curtained us with an Illusion. I should apologize for all of the disruption, for making her clean up alone. Instead, I just hug her again.
“Thank you,” I mutter.
“For what?”
“For being my friend.”
Lila stills in my arms, falling silent.
Oh, I think. I’ve already messed up.
My arms drop as I pull back. Lila frowns, chewing on her bottom lip.
Something sinks in my chest. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to assume…We don’t have to be friends, if that’s not what you want.” The words are stones in my heart.
“It’s not that, it’s—Avery.” She plants her hands on my shoulders, looking me square in the eyes. My discomfort urges me to look away, but I don’t as Lila takes a breath and starts again. “No one has ever called me friend first. Usually, I’m the one who cares more.”
The one who cares more.
“Well, I care,” I say. “A lot. In fact, I was hoping we could…” I clear my throat, my pulse pounding. I feel like a child again, asking if I could sit in an open spot on the long bench. “We could spend time together, whenever you’re free?”
Lila grins, nudging the door open. “I’m free now.”
A cacophony of color jumps out as I follow her in. Swatches, fabric scraps, and pieces of parchment are arranged in various shapes and colors in spiraling patterns, forming a collage that resembles a stained-glass rendering of a meadow, and in its center, a grand tree.
“Lucan’s Tree,” I whisper, studying the collection. Every piece has been intentionally and intelligently placed to appear as accidentally beautiful. I face her. “Lila, you’re an artist.”
She flushes. “I’m not sure about that.”
“Where did you find all of this?”
She shrugs. “I collect colors in the trash. Scraps from the seamstress, spices from the kitchen. The High Fae expect perfection, so that leads to an exorbitant amount of waste. But it’s not truly waste—it’s just not perfect.”
“I prefer imperfections,” I say, my eyes trailing to a piece of parchment stuck to the wall. It’s a sketch of different blocks, with labels scribbled inside. In the top right corner are two words: The Pith.
It’s the royal quarters in isolation, a simple square divided into four quadrants, to represent the different apartments.
The top two are labeled Sun Salon and Moon Salon for the king and queen, respectively.
Reflections of each other, they consist of linking chambers that, starting from the outside in, are the antechamber and reception room, the dining room, the lounge, the private library, the bedroom, the wardrobe, and a large bathing suite that connects the two salons.
The two southern apartments are both labeled Salon of Stars, with fewer rooms and labels. My finger traces these apartments.
“For the royal children,” Lila says behind me.
“How did you figure this out?”
“My father was a Reign Scarp—he cleaned and stocked the chimneys, oiled door hinges, wiped windows, cleaned tapestries. There are fireplaces, doors, windows, and tapestries in every room.” Her voice deflates with each word.
“You miss him.”
Reaching for the parchment, she peels it from the stone, caresses the etchings. “He would take me on his rounds. Tell me Unesse legends as I passed him the wrench, the rag, the oil. He painted the most vivid pictures.”
“And you’re continuing his legacy.”
“Perhaps.”
I nod, understanding the wound in her voice. It’s not something to argue or gloss over. Instead, I ask what I always wish faeries would ask about my mother.
“What was his name?” I say.
Lila gives a small smile. “Dorin.”
“May Dorin wander well.”
“May he wander well,” she replies.
Leaning forward, I notice that the intersection of all four apartments has been scratched out, redrawn, and scratched again. “What’s that?”
The next thing I know, Lila is pushing the parchment into my hands and crossing the room.
She presses her ear to the door, checks the lock.
Checks the lock again. My spine stiffens, cold air wafting off the stones.
I say nothing as she reaches her cot and pats the mattress next to her.
When I sit, I force my fingers to loosen from the crumpled paper.
“Is…everything okay?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “I think there’s a hidden room—at the center of it all. I just don’t know what’s inside it.”
Goosebumps pinch my skin. A secret, I think. Follow this secret. It may be useful.
I observe the map once more, the very center of the Pith, unknown even to a faerie who’s lived here all her life. “How do you figure?”
“For one, Reign has no inner gardens.”
It was one of the first differences I had noticed—that the rooms had no windows, the only natural light pouring in through glass squares in the roof. I’d assumed it was the trade-off for the privacy of the Pith, its placement as the core of power.
“But maybe they do. Maybe a garden exists, but even the servants aren’t allowed to enter.” Lila’s expression brims with a naked curiosity that brings extra color to her cheeks and a spark into her eye—something she rarely shows beneath the armor of laughs and smiles.
“That’s not all, is it?” I ask.
A grin splits her face. “One time on a cleaning shift with my father, I noticed that the wall in the king and queen’s bathing suite curves into the space, cutting down the size of the bathing pool by half. It’s not a smooth curve, either. It’s as if the chambers are built around something.”
But nothing in Versara is built around nature, for the entire point of the palace is to dominate the elements—the gardens of trees sheared into unnatural shapes, the right angles of the archways and columns, even the tapestries and painted ceilings.
All of it designed to say that we render our world and everything in it.
“And what is important enough to cut into the space of the king and queen?”
“Part of the old building?” I guess.
Lila shakes her head. “King Gregor—may he wander well—used to gut and rebuild rooms with the change of the seasons. My father called him the Bored General. He’s redone every part of House of Reign, even the servants’ quarters, except for the royal bathing chambers, which are even smaller than ours.
Why allow something to be inconvenient? The High Fae never do that, especially not House Reign. ”
My finger drifts to the two southern apartments for the royal children. “And the Salon of Stars?”
“Their shared bath also curves into the space. As if it’s a mirror of the parental suite.”
I glance up at her. “And the two half-moon walls form a circle. A giant, empty space at the center of the Pith.”
“Yet there are no doors into it, and it’s not an Illusion.” Then she shrugs. “I asked my father and his generation what it could mean, but they all say the Pith is the oldest part of the palace. It’s bound to have a few odd walls.”
“But it does seem a bit strange for the royal family to give up space in a palace as sprawling as Versara, and then not to correct that oversight. Most faerie servants only ever see one House’s wing. That’s why the coronation was such a large event for the staff.”
Lila nods vigorously. “We know it’s not for lack of wealth or resources.
And that’s not all,” she says, scooching closer.
“Why is House Reign nicknamed ‘the Pith’? No faerie today is old enough to remember why, but we all call it that because my father’s generation did. But they didn’t remember, either.”
“Why would a palace of stone and gold be called a pith? If you pry apart a stem in some plants, it’s the central tissue inside. That’s what it’s called.”
“Wow, okay,” she breathes. “Do you know what to pith an animal means? Fern told me once that it’s an old term that describes killing an animal by severing their spinal cord.”
Perhaps we fixate on a detail that means nothing.
But again, why must only night servants take oaths of silence?
Day Crests experience their fair share of terror at the hands of High Fae.
What secrets are they afraid we’ll discover during the twilight intimacy that forms when helping a High Fae to bed and hearing their nightmares?
“I believe you,” I say.
“But you haven’t seen the curved walls.”
“But you have.”
“Perhaps it’s something they perceive as more important than themselves. Though I don’t think their egos would ever allow that.”
I snort, then think on this. “You’re saying it could be a relic? Something sacred?”
“Yes!” she whispers. “For if it were a resource, they would send faeries to mine it. If it were favorable with the other Houses, Reign would show it off in ceremonies. If it were unimportant, they would destroy it.”
We lapse into silence. Lila takes the parchment, folds it, and slides it under her pillow.
Climbing to my feet, I reach the window on the back wall, the spring air warming this time of year.
My eyes scan the concentric buildings that ripple outward like water, rendering the Pith as the point of contact.
The spine of the palace, the central nervous system.
I’d spent so much time looking at the barren state gardens from my room, I forgot to look beyond.
From Lila’s room I can see the peaks of the northern mountain range, and perhaps at night, she can even spot the city lights of Cont to the north.
I learned, secondhand, that there is a river to the north and another to the south of us, but even from this distance, I cannot see them through trees and rolling hills.
“Perhaps this is about more than just the palace,” I say. “Maybe it’s about all of Amyria.”
My friend approaches. “How so?”
“Of all the hills in this valley, why choose this one? Why not build the capital closer to the fertile lands of the riverbanks and fresh water supply like the other cities? In a kingdom surrounded by sand, what is more important than access to fresh food and water?”
Lila sucks in a breath. “Whatever brought them here. Whatever they built Versara around.”
“But you say there are no entrances into whatever may lie at the center of the Pith.”
“That we know of.” Her eyes widen. “Like…like the way the Reign fae hide the lounge.”
“So no one can access it. Except for Reign fae.”
Lila cups her hand around my ear, despite us being alone, for fae hearing is too sensitive. “Perhaps that is the point. That the thing at the center of the Pith can also no longer access us.”
When I shiver, she leans into me. I lean into her in return.
Our lives may be short, but memories pass along, inherited, reshaping into legends with time. Someone must know something.
It may be useless to Kassandra. Or it may be the biggest secret of all, the best piece of blackmail.
In this moment, sitting in contented silence with Lila, I suddenly don’t care.
Panic and hope entwine painfully in my chest like sharp ivy, for today I feel less alone.
I will work to strengthen this connection with Lila night in and night out, something I have not made the effort to earn in a very long time.
Today I made a friend.
A friend who wants to wander into the dark of the maze, too.